Last checked at 
LONDON (Alliance News) - BioPharma Credit PLC on Tuesday said its net assets increased sharply in total in 2018 but two sizeable share placings meant that its net asset value per share was largely unmoved.
The life sciences debt investment trust's net asset value per share on December 31 was USD1.0044, down 0.5% from USD1.0091 per share the year before.
While net assets increased to USD1.39 billion from USD922.6 million in 2017, this effect was diluted on a per-share basis due to the share subscriptions in the year which lifted the number of shares in issue by 33% to 1.37 billion at the end of 2018 from 914.3 million shares at the end of 2017.
At the end of November, BioPharma Credit announced it had raised USD305 million from the issue of 297.6 million shares. The company also raised USD163.8 million through the issue of C shares in April, which were converted to 162.1 million ordinary shares in October.
In the year, BioPharma Credit made five dividend payments totalling 7.94 US cents per share in respect of the five quarters to September 30, including a special dividend of 1.1 cents related to the period ended December 2017. In 2017, it paid or declared dividends totalling 2 cents per share.
BioPharma Credit will pay a per-share dividend of 1.1927441 cents for the quarter ended December 31, consisting of an ordinary dividend of 1.75 cents and a special dividend of 0.177441 cents.
"We start the 2019 financial year with significant investment capital to deploy towards a healthy pipeline of attractive debt investment opportunities. We look forward to another productive year of supporting shareholder returns predominantly through continuing income distributions, uncorrelated to traditional equity market movements, from unique debt investment exposure to the life sciences industry," said Pedro Gonzalez de Cosio, chief executive and founder of Pharmakon Advisors LP, BioPharma Credit's investment manager.
Shares in BioPharma Credit were up 0.5% at USD1.05 in London on Monday.
